Many methods and devices have been developed for measuring and describing the visual appearance of objects. These methods and devices are useful in a variety of contexts. For example, measurements of the visual appearance of an object can reveal properties of any paints, pigments, specialty coatings, surface treatments, etc., that may be present on the object. Also, for example, measurements of the visual appearance of an object can be used to create computer models, set production tolerances, etc. It is known to use various devices to provide spectral measurements of a surface of an object. Existing devices, however, either produce results of limited detail or are exorbitant in cost, size, and the time necessary for measurements.
For example, it is known to use discrete multi-angle spectrometers that measure reflectance over a limited number of viewing and illumination directions. An example of such a device is the MA68 available from X-RITE. All of these devices, however, either consider a limited number of viewing directions (e.g., coplanar directions), or consider data derived from all viewing angles together, for example, by summing or averaging over all directions. As a result, known discrete multi-angle spectrometers provide results that do not reflect directional variations in surface appearance. Referring to the coatings industry, these results can be useful to measure some properties of surfaces including conventional paints, pigments, and coatings. They are not as useful, however, for measuring properties of surfaces having specialized paints, pigments, and other specialty coatings that have different appearances when viewed from different angles, such as those that appear today on cars, boats, currency, consumer plastics, cosmetics, etc. For example, limited sample multi-angle spectrometers are not as useful for measuring properties of interference coatings such as, for example, pearlescent automotive paints that appear one color (e.g., white) from one angle and a second color (e.g., pink) from another angle. They also typically do not provide detailed enough results to tie properties of a surface back to physical features of the surface, for example, due to coating formulation and/or application process factors.
Some of the shortcomings of known discrete multi-angle spectrometers are addressed by devices that measure the complete Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) of a surface, such as goniospectrophotometers and parousiameters. The complete BRDF generated by these devices provides a rich characterization of the scatter off of a surface as a function of illumination angle, viewing angle, wavelength and other variables. Both of the known devices for measuring BRDF, however, have significant drawbacks.
Goniospectrophotometers, such as the GCMS-4 Gonio-Spectro-Photometric Colorimeter available from MURAKAMI, measure the complete BRDF by scanning both illumination and detection angles, typically over a complete hemisphere. Although they can provide good results, the devices are extremely large and expensive. Also, it can take several hours to scan illumination and detection angles over a complete hemisphere, making real-time applications impossible. Parousiameters, such as the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,557,397 to Wademan, measure the complete BRDF by projecting a range of illumination and detection angles onto a hemispheric screen and imaging the screen using a camera. The error of these devices, however, is directly related to the size of the hemispherical screen, and the devices cannot acceptably measure samples with an area greater than 10% of their screen's area. As a result, parousiameters are often large and bulky. Also, slots in the screen, and the limited dynamic range of most high resolution cameras further limit the device. In addition, because both goniospectrophotometers and parouiameters measure illumination and viewing angles over a complete hemisphere, noise issues can become a significant factor.